Recollections of a Gardener
by BraellyraLeatherleaf
Summary: Oneshot. Just as the title says. Sam looks back on the time before, during, and after the Quest. No Slash.


Recollections of a Gardener

Disclaimer: You know the drill, not mine, Tolkiens, yeah yeah...

A/N: As usual for me, this is NOT SLASH, it's brotherly love. Also, again I thank my beta, Inwe Telemnar, you rock!

I had never forgotten Mr. Frodo.

How could I? He was the bravest, kindest, fairest, most well learned hobbit in all the Shire. He was a gentle hobbit, and he was like a brother to me.

When we were young, and he just newly moved to Hobbiton, I remember days of sitting in the garden or walking through the wood by the Party Field. Sometimes Mr. Bilbo would teach us our letters and tell us tales of the elves and the Lonely Mountain. My old Gaffer was never fond of that, but as long as I finished my chores in the garden he didn't object. I haven't forgotten him neither.

Before then, it used to be I'd romp with the Cotton lads whenever there wasn't work to be done. When Mr. Frodo came, I spent most of my time with him. He didn't fit in well with the other lads, and even though they were friendly to him, I reckon he preferred to keep to his books and elvish poetry.

I remember eating the strawberries and cream in the spring, and in the summer picnicking on the shores of the Brandywine. Mr. Frodo could swim, he had learned to not long after his parents passed, and he did, but I didn't dare go too close to the water, lest I fell in and drowned.

Those days could've lasted forever, and I wouldn't have minded in the least, but then Bilbo left, and when he did, he left the Ring to Mr. Frodo.

I had seen it before, but never thought anything of the tiny golden trinket, except that it had been important in Bilbo's journey. If only I'd been right…

And so Gandalf came and sent Mr. Frodo from the safety of the Shire. Prodded by Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin, I harvested what I could and told them, and so they too knew of what Mr. Frodo was up to when he sold Bad End to Mrs. Lobelia Sackville-Baggins.

When we left, the four of us, for Bree, we hadn't known what would become of us. Had we, we may have been less willing to go. Less willing, but we would have, for Mr. Frodo wouldn't have turned back from his task, and none of us were going to leave him.

But the journey brought terrors we could have never imagined. Things not even in the Great Stories or in our nightmares. The Black Riders, or Ringwraiths, of Nazgul, or whomever you want to call them, were a cold horror beyond any of our imaginations. Strider, although I did not trust him, made us feel a bit more confident that they wouldn't harm us. And then Mr. Frodo was wounded.

From the moment he fell until the day he woke in Rivendell I was caught in a sickness of dread that I would lose the friend I had known since I was a young lad. Afterward, when he was well again, I felt light. The weight of fear had lifted and I rejoiced in Mr. Frodo's life. We would go home now, and return to a peaceful life in the Shire.

Again, I was wrong. Our happy time in Rivendell was short lived. Mr. Frodo was to leave, to take the Ring to Mordor, to destroy it, and he was to carry it, and I was going with him on a journey that would change our lives for eternity. A journey of pain, of lies, deceit and war. In the end, it was the two of us from the original nine of the Fellowship. The two of us, and Gollum. In the end, starving and struggling to continue, it was Mr. Frodo and me on Mount Doom, trying to do what we'd set out for. I held on to hope the entire journey, I never doubted Mr. Frodo once, and he did it, and we lived to tell of it, which is the amazing thing.

To this day I wonder, try to wonder, what would've happened had I been disloyal and returned home. Or what would've happened if I'd let Mr. Frodo leave Amon Hen on his own? What if we had never met Gollum? What if Captain Faramir and his men hadn't found us? Or if Shelob had never stung Mr. Frodo? In the end, most would say everything turned out right and as it should have. Of course, the Ring was destroyed and Sauron defeated, but there were other things. Things that caused Frodo to leave the home he fought so hard to protect.

The Shire was saved, aye, from both dark lord and wizard. We returned home, and tried to live the life we had left behind. I married Rosie, and we moved into Bag End. We were happy. But Mr. Frodo, he couldn't be.

He locked himself inside his study for hours, not even coming out for meals. He became a phantom, a shadow of the light spirited, cheerful hobbit he'd been. If one paused, still and quiet outside the closed door, he could be heard muttering or, sometimes even, crying. There were constantly dark circles beneath his eyes and he seemed to be growing thinner by the day. He couldn't sleep, even with his room all lit with firelight and candlelight. When exhaustion won over fear and he could physically no longer remain awake, he drifted into an unconsciousness that was not the peaceful slumber he needed, but a violent fit of nightmares that awoke him screaming and haunted him even in his waking hours.

On October the sixth he was pained greatly by his shoulder, a wound that never healed after its piercing on Weathertop. I was with him that entire day, trying in vain to pull him from his delusion. When the spell finally broke, he was spent and slept his first real sleep in months. It had passed, and Rosie and I hoped against hope that this was the end of his torture.

The following spring, though, Mr. Frodo fell ill again, but it was different than in October. His neck stung terribly, but he was aware of what went on around him. He vomited almost continuously and had a raging fever the whole day. Rose and I tried to bring it down, but nothing could defeat this new enemy. It had passed the next morning, and Mr. Frodo seemed himself again. At least, the himself he now was.

The following September, not long after Elanor was born, I accompanied him to see Bilbo for their birthday. Of course, things turned out differently.

I hadn't expected, hadn't dreamed that he would leave. Looking back now, it makes sense, but then, then it was a shock that made me shake in realization. Mr. Frodo was leaving. My Mr. Frodo, whom I had known for so long and had come to love as a brother, was leaving, and his Sam, for once, couldn't follow.

I wept. I wept as he told me, wept as we shared a final embrace, wept as he planted a soft kiss on my forehead in farewell, and wept as he boarded the gray ship and sailed over the sea. But mostly, mostly I wept for the loss of his spirit. For the robbery of his life, of his happy days in the Shire that he loved so much as to risk his own life for it. He had succeeded in that, but in doing so, he had lost his life. The shell of Frodo had come back from the Quest, had been living in Bag End for eleven months, and then sailed away across the sea. But I still loved him, and I wept.

Mr. Merry tried to comfort me, to tell me it was not the end, not really, that I would see him again, for Frodo had said so himself. But he didn't know, could not know that as Mr. Frodo sailed away on the Elven ship, I was losing a part of myself as well, and that even when I chose to follow him, as he said I would, I would get it back again, an aching, gaping hole had opened inside my heart. It was similar, perhaps even greater, than when my Ma had passed so long ago.

And then Mr. Pippin tried to console my weeping heart. He told me that Frodo would feel no more pain, face no more darkness, and remember no more despair. He too did not understand. I knew all of this; they did not need to tell me. Although I knew Frodo could not remain living on this earth, was glad he would no longer have to suffer through each day as his mind faced a painful agony, I could not tell them how it felt to have him suddenly be gone. I knew better than they how he had suffered in those final days. Knew what it had been like for him. I had cared for him in the best way possible, given him the remnants of our precious water supply and carried him as his mind withered and gave in to the evil about his neck. But he had never been without his Sam since moving to Hobbiton, and I feared for him, although I knew he had Bilbo, and that no harm would come to him…but without me?

When I returned home, Rose drew me in, and seeing the look on my face sat me down with Elanor and held my hand as I told her of what had happened. But Rose saw more than I did. She told me that, while I wondered how Mr. Frodo would manage without his Sam, that I also was concerned about how I would manage without my Frodo. We are connected, she said. She told me that, in following him and caring for him and keeping him alive, Mr. Frodo and I had formed a bond of friendship and love and brotherhood. One created only through hatred and pain and darkness. It wouldn't be broken, she said, and Mr. Frodo would wait for me patiently, until I chose to come.

It had been one of the most painful and longest but most glorious days of my life. Yet when I awoke the next day, there were no sad thoughts in my head, no thoughts of regret, or guilt, or anger or hurt. But that of relief, of triumph, of joy. It was like being born again, and there was no cause for which to mourn.

The years passed, and my family grew. Rose gave birth to thirteen children, and they all grew up to be charming lads and lasses. I became the mayor of Hobbiton several times, and kept in touch with Strider and the rest of the remaining Fellowship. That is, except for Mr. Frodo.

The day came, when I chose to follow him. It was after Rose died, and my heart had been heavy for many weeks. I passed the Red Book on to Elanor, and then boarded the gray ship to return to my heart's brother.

When the ship docked, I beheld the most beautiful land I had ever seen. White sand, rolling, green hills, silver forests. My heart went instantly out to this earth, but it leapt at the next sight it beheld.

I moved off the ship as quickly as my old bones would allow, and attempted to scramble up the beach. I only made it half way, but it did not matter, he was there. For a moment we could only stare at each other, to take in the sight we had both seen only in our dreams for years. Tears ran down our faces unheeded, and then he threw his arms around me in an embrace and sobbing, I did too. When again we looked at each other, I saw not the wounded hobbit that had left. Instead, I saw Mr. Frodo as he had been in the days before the Ring, the Frodo I had known and loved. His face was no longer creased in fear or agony but was soft and bright. My heart was filled, was overflowing with ecstasy for here, here was my Frodo, and his Sam was here with him again.

And when we left that fair land, we left together, and together we remain.

End


End file.
